Phrygia Between the East and the West Day Two

SEE CONFERENCE PROGRAM HERE

The Department of Humanities of the University of Pavia in collaboration with the Institute for the Study of the Ancient World of New York University have organized a conference in Pavia on April 7-9, 2022. This collaborative conference brings together experts and young scholars to discuss the themes presented above which emerged from the homonymous joint UNIPV – ISAW graduate seminar of Spring 2021: "Phrygia between the East and the West".

The question of the definition of contrastive identities between the East and the West has always been central to understanding the Mediterranean, the European, and, today also, the Atlantic world. In the reassessment of the values and fundaments of a new, diverse, and inclusive society, the legacy of the Greco-Roman world on western political identity as ‘the exemplum’ is under scrutiny. The discussion, often led by non-experts, however, involves a too simplistic understanding of the ancient Mediterranean, in general, and of the Greco-Roman experience, in particular. The challenge for ancient historians and archaeologists is to promote a vision of the ancient Mediterranean with all of its rich complexity and diversity in the broader context of the ancient world. In order to make space for a different understanding of the ancient Mediterranean trajectory, this conference focuses on Phrygia, a region of northwestern, inner Anatolia, which represented a borderland between the East and the West for the entire 1st millennium BCE. The conference even aims to bring a conjecture to discussion: whether it was Phrygia, well before the expansion of the Achaemenid Empire towards the west, that promoted contrastive identities between the East and the West already during the 8th century BCE. The aim is also to investigate how the several elements of diversity characterizing this borderland were received and elaborated in contemporary and later societies of the Mediterranean and Near Eastern worlds.

Inquiries may be directed to the co-organizers:

Lorenzo d’Alfonso (lda5@nyu.edu)

Nathan Lovejoy (ncl291@nyu.edu)

Alessio Mantovan (alessio.mantovan84@gmail.com)

Annarita Bonfanti (annaritastefan.bonfanti01@universitadipavia.it)

Ryan Henry Schnell (rhs399@nyu.edu)

Watch live here: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCc6AMiR1aGEjxmMIBt9C8tQ